Posts Tagged ‘Prohibition’

The “Great Thirst” of Prohibition officially ended in December 1933 with the repeal of the 18th Amendment. Some states were a little early. Here’s how drinkers celebrated the arrival of retail beer in San Diego, 90 years ago today.

San Diego Union, April 8, 1933.

San Diego Union, June 27, 1926

San Diego, San Pedro and Santa Barbara have become the focal point of the rum runners operating on the Pacific coast . . . It is believed that the bulk of the rum fleet will arrive in southern California waters, literally flooding this part of the state with booze of all descriptions. –San Diego Union, May 12, 1925.

The “noble experiment” of Prohibition, which outlawed most manufacture, sales, and transportation of intoxicating liquor, began in 1920 with the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment.  An assortment of unintended consequences accompanied Prohibition, including a stunning rise in organized crime, such as the lucrative  “rum running” trade from America’s “Wet” neighbors—Canada and Mexico.

The story of The Rum Runners.

San Diego Union

In 1909, a dry wave was growing in America. Temperance laws were slowing liquor sales in cities throughout the country. Saloons were a particular target. . .

This is the story of San Diego’s Anti-Saloonists Campaign.

Police Chief Harry Raymond

In the early 1900s, few jobs were more tenuous than Chief of the San Diego Police Department.  The pressures of city politics kept careers short, averaging eleven months between 1927 and 1934.  The tenure of Chief Harry J. Raymond was briefer than most, and maybe the strangest.

Raymond became chief on June 5, 1933.  With more than twenty years of police experience, largely as an investigator for the Los Angeles district attorney’s office, he brought to the job a “reputation for efficiency in force management,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

 But his appointment to the $300 per month job by City Manager Fred Lockwood was instantly questioned . . .

Read the complete story of the rise and fall of Harry Raymond.

Police Chief Arthur Hill.

The Police Department got the liquor, fixers got the money, and the Legionnaires laughed.  –Abraham Sauer, editor, the San Diego Herald.

Scores of Americans found themselves suddenly stranded in Mexico last night when the famous “hole in the fence” at the border was closed yesterday afternoon without warning. . . Protest was made to customs and immigration officials on duty, but the officers said they could do nothing about it . . .

Read about The Hole in the Fence.